Montana Dog Owners Find Wild-Animal Traps Put Pets in Harm’s Way

A nonprofit group is teaching people how to free pets inadvertently caught in traps set legally for wild fur-bearing animals.

MISSOULA, Mont. — The first order of business when freeing a dog caught in a trap, Anja Heister said, is to put a stick in its mouth.

“No matter how much it loves you, it may try to bite,” Ms. Heister explained to a group gathered at a coffee shop here last week.

The demonstration was one of several across Montana being conducted by Footloose Montana, a nonprofit organization led by Ms. Heister. The group is teaching people how to free pets inadvertently caught in traps set legally for wild fur-bearing animals.

Trapping is common in many parts of the country. But in Western states like Montana much of it takes place on public lands, where conflicts are playing out with increasing frequency between trappers and recreational users as the number of retirees and second-home owners grows.

The recent killing of nontargeted animals, including a dog and a golden eagle, and the wounding of others have heightened tensions and helped fuel a movement to restrict fur trapping in Montana. Four Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado and Washington — already ban or restrict certain kinds of traps, known as body-gripping traps.

Footloose has been running advertisements on television as well as on YouTube warning dog owners about the hazards of traps. The group, formed last year in response to the dog trappings, is in the early stages of planning a voter initiative that would ban trapping on public lands.

Trappers say the proposed restrictions, as well as those imposed in the other states, are supported by people who do not appreciate the role that trapping plays in regulating populations of fur-bearing animals, including beaver, coyotes and wolverines.

They also complain the restrictions are an attack on a Western way of life. Montana issued more than 4,000 trapping licenses last year, and estimated that 47,600 animals were trapped for their pelts in 2006.

“Trapping is an important part of wildlife management,” said Dave Miller, director of national and international affairs for the National Trappers Association, which claims 10,000 members. “It is very efficient and humane method of managing wildlife when properly done.”

There is no way to know how many animals are caught unintentionally in traps because the episodes are often not reported and some of the animals disappear. So far this year, Footloose Montana has collected the stories of 12 dogs in western Montana caught in traps; three of them died.

“The very nature of trapping is that of a land mine,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, which has led campaigns in several states against trapping. “It’s indiscriminate. They catch whatever animal is unfortunate enough to trigger a device.”

Trappers place some of the blame for the dog deaths on the dog owners.

“Very often these are dogs that are supposed to be on a leash and are not,” said Mr. Miller of the trappers association. “Dog owners bear some responsibility.”

Most of the debate has focused on three types of traps, collectively called body-gripping traps. One of them, the foothold or leghold trap, catches the paw and holds the animal until the trapper arrives and kills it. Another trap, the snare, is made from aircraft cable. It catches the animal, often by the neck, and either holds it or strangles it. The third trap, the conibear, is designed to snap onto the animal’s neck and kill it instantly.

It was the killing of Cupcake, a border collie mix, in a conibear trap last winter that first spurred the anti-trapping campaign here. The dog’s owner, Filip Panusz, was hiking near Missoula on a popular trail in a national forest when the dog wandered over an embankment. Mr. Panusz said he heard a loud snap; he found the dog dying in a conibear trap that had been set in a creek.

Brian Giddings, a trapper who is the furbearer coordinator for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said such accidents are unfortunate, but not the norm. The conibear traps (named for the inventor, a Canadian trapper named Frank Conibear) are required to be set in enclosures that are supposed to block entry by dogs. The traps without such protections, he said, have been set illegally.

“There are a few people who are renegades,” Mr. Giddings said. “And the illegal sets are the ones that catch the dogs. There’s always going to be a few who break the law.”

There have been other episodes recently. One woman in Missoula, whose dog was caught in a conibear during a walk, struggled to free the animal but could not. She said she laid down next to her dog as it died. An emergency room doctor from Missoula had both of his bird dogs caught in traps while he was hunting. They survived. In January, a golden eagle was caught in a trap and its leg broken. It had to be destroyed.

Dogs are generally easy to free from leghold traps, Mr. Giddings said, and those traps do not usually cause severe injuries. But because trappers in Montana are not required to check their traps at certain intervals, critics say a dog or other animal can spend hours or days in a trap and can break their teeth, dislocate a shoulder or tear ligaments trying to free themselves.

“Many of the injured have huge vet bills,” said Jerry Black, a member of the board of Footloose Montana. “People don’t get reimbursed for this.”

The stepped-up debate over trapping has also touched upon the long-standing disagreement about whether trapping is the best way to kill animals.

“It’s at odds with the hunter ethic of a clean and quick kill,” said Mr. Pacelle of the Humane Society. “It’s the most inhumane form of hunting.”

Trappers says traps are humane if used responsibly.

“They are designed to hold the animal until the trapper can come and dispatch it,” Mr. Giddings said. “If you use the right size they will hold the animal until the trapper can come.”

In particular, the conibear trap, Mr. Giddings said, “is very humane because the animal is dead in less than a minute.”

The American Veterinary Medical Association recently issued an opinion on leghold traps, determining that versions with padded jaws or offset jaws — meaning the two jaws do not close tightly — are considered humane.

“They can certainly cause damage, but the possibility of damage is reduced,” said Dr. Gail Golob, the group’s director of animal welfare. Unmodified leghold traps were not deemed humane; the group’s review did not address snares and conibear traps.

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